It may be too late, but a group called Premier Boxing Champions is putting boxing back on network television. The first of 11 cards airs Saturday night on NBC, and the same group has an eight-fight deal with CBS.

"It was very difficult for an up-and-coming guy to get some notice," Al Michaels, who will be host of the inaugural NBC card, said on a conference call. "To that degree, on balance, it was not good for the sport. That's one of the reasons why I'm very curious to see ... a boxing card on what we call free, over-the-air television."

It's a low-risk deal for the networks.

PBC, according to multiple reports, is taking the financial risks. NBC and CBS get live sports programming when inventory is light, and boxing gets a chance to recapture an audience that has drifted to mixed martial arts.

"For a while it was only Manny Pacquiao and (Floyd) Mayweather who were more than just household names, but global names," said Leonard, who will serve as an analyst on the NBC cards. "The other guys who were incredible fighters, they never got a chance to really showcase their talents, because it was always on pay-per-view. Even those fans couldn't afford to pay to see those fighters. There were a lot of boxing fans who just can't afford to pay that amount of money to view fights."

Boxing issues go beyond TV exposure, but that's the best place to start.

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The pay-per-view fights stuffed the pockets of promoters such as King and Bob Arum, and the top-line fighters were well-compensated.

Yet other than the May 2 overdue Mayweather-Pacquiao showdown — on pay per view, of course — is there any other current matchup sports fans are clamoring for? Not really, since most don't know the boxers.

"You deal with something like this," Michaels said, "and what you really want to do is to make sure the audience is able to connect in some manner with the fighters and tell the audience who they are, what they're all about, and why they should care about them."

"Or in some cases," said Marv Albert, the soon-to-be 74-year-old "blow by blow" announcer for the NBC fights, "people they don't like, which also brings eyeballs to the screen. Not every story is a good one."

One writer on the conference call noted that the three best-known people for any of these fight cards will be Michaels, Albert and Leonard, proving that television hasn't gone away, just boxing.